Lawyers, guns and money…

I’ll have more to say about this later, but when Alberto Gonzales’ lips move, I assume he’s lying.  When someone says George W. Bush is committed to something, it means he’ll say something, but nothing is being done.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

3:19 p.m. June 8, 2007

CUERNAVACA, Mexico – Attorney General Alberto Gonzales said Friday that Washington is taking steps to address Mexican concerns the U.S. is not doing enough to stop illegal weapons from being smuggled across the border and into the hands of brutal drug gangs.

A meeting here of attorneys general from the U.S., Mexico and six other Latin American countries focused on Mexican complaints weapons from the United States are fueling a wave of cartel-related executions and violent crime that is battering the nation.

“We are concerned about the number of weapons coming into Mexico and Central America illegally from the United States,” Gonzales said. “There is more that we can do, and we are looking to do, to try and stem the flow of illegal weapons into Mexico.”Gonzales, who is embroiled in a controversy over the Justice Department’s firing of eight federal prosecutors last year, said that officials engaged in “very frank, sometimes tough discussions.”

…

Mexican officials have repeatedly complained that the U.S. must do more to stop the flow of potent weapons – including assault rifles and even .50-caliber machine guns – that drug gangs often purchase in the United States.

“The firepower we are seeing here has to do with a lack of control on the (U.S.) side of the border,” Patricio Patino, Mexico’s top anti-drug intelligence official, said last month. “What we have asked the American government … is that they put clear controls on the shipments of weapons.”

…
Mexican Attorney General Eduardo Medina Mora argued that combatting violence was a cross-border issue, saying: “We recognize that we can’t confront this problem alone.”

Gonzales agreed, and said he and President Bush were “committed to collaborating in the development of a regional security and law enforcement strategy.”